Prada Marfa/ Desert Sculpture

[metal-on-metal]

Prada as desert sculpture

Interesting little article on a cool art project with a sense of humor, organized by Yvonne Force Villareal of Art Production Fund. Not her biggest fan but this sounds like a fun installation.

From The New York Times

Little Prada in the Desert

Window shopping is all you can do at the Prada "store" in West Texas. But a cowboy can dream, can't he?

By ERIC WILSON

Published: September 29, 2005

TEXAS, as big as it is, does not have a Prada store. It does have Neiman Marcus, which carries plenty of Prada merchandise, but the state cannot boast a free-standing store dedicated to Miuccia Prada's expensive shoes and oddly shaped bags.

But come Saturday it will look as if a tornado had picked up a Prada store and dropped it on a desolate strip of U.S. 90 in West Texas. That is where Prada Marfa, a permanent sculpture by the Berlin artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset will be installed. (Actually it will go up in Valentine, Tex., about 26 miles outside Marfa, a town of 2,400 that has become a magnet for artists and art lovers.)

The sculpture is meant to look like a Prada store, with minimalist white stucco walls and a window display housing real Prada shoes and handbags from the fall collection. But there is no working door.

A few years ago, when much of the SoHo art scene was being chased to Chelsea by the proliferation of designer shops, Elmgreen & Dragset, as the artists are known, installed signs in the windows of a Chelsea gallery that read, "Prada, Coming Soon." It was enough to temporarily fool and impress Yvonne Force Villareal and Doreen Remen, who are producing Prada Marfa through their nonprofit Art Production Fund with support from Ballroom Marfa, a performance and alternative-art space in Marfa.

"We loved this proposal for many reasons," Ms. Villareal said. "We loved the idea of the piece being born on Oct. 1 and that it will never again be maintained. If someone spray-paints graffiti or a cowboy decides to use it as target practice or maybe a mouse or a muskrat makes a home in it, 50 years from now it will be a ruin that is a reflection of the time it was made."

The piece hints at subjects to which designers are sensitive: the unchecked growth of luxury brands, the temporal relevance of fashion, retail as tourism and a culture that is devoted to buying and selling. But Ms. Villareal said that Miuccia Prada had given the artists the permission to use her trademark for the work. She also picked out the shoes.

 

[arlekindearrabal]

wonderful, thx m-o-m

 

[liberty33r1b]

i love this idea!!

 

[Lena]

excellent, ironic, philosophical, brilliant, rebelious, fresh, political
love this too much , what a laugh

thanks for bringing it in metal

 

[travolta]

another example of guerilla marketing?

nice bit of free advertising for prada. are the artists somehow related to her, and possibly get a bit of the cut for their everlasting billboard?

 

[Lena]

i think its far more hard-rock irony than advertising travolta..

(but then, it's just my opinion)

 

[arlekindearrabal]

^very likely... does anyone have more info?

 

[travolta]

intent or not it's still free advertising, i mean it's supposed to just decay right? besides, who will really care to read that little artist statement plaque (if there is one) 50 years from now? i'm not knocking it ;P

 

[metal-on-metal]

If anything, I see it an as attack on Prada and global conglomerates, "shopping culture", and the mall-ification of America and the world. I'm quite surprised Miuccia endorses it, but then again she's always been smarter than the average bear. She probably enjoys the loaded political statement even though she's part of the problem. Ms. Prada was very politically active in her youth, let us not forget.

 

[Lena]

^^ agreed with metal

 

[travolta]

If anything, I see it an as attack on Prada and global conglomerates, "shopping culture", and the mall-ification of America and the world. I'm quite surprised Miuccia endorses it, but then again she's always been smarter than the average bear. She probably enjoys the loaded political statement even though she's part of the problem. Ms. Prada was very politically active in her youth, let us not forget.

it seems to be an attack, but i think a lot of artists aren't actually successful in undermining these looming giants. i think it's really blatant and therefore not very thought provoking. i think miuccia is actually smart to realize she could gain from this because if you think of it... will the average person who drives by this, or stops in to examine it further actually have a moment of ephinany? probably not. they'll just remember that really cool prada building in the middle of nowhere ..like mcdonalds, or apple computers. it's a giant brand in the desert..
they'll get the impression prada was part of the collective consciousness.

 

[metal-on-metal]

I agree that Miuccia's involvement furthers Prada's standing as an intelligent, artsy label. It really reinforces that image. But it's definitely also a critique on mass consumerism and perhaps it's the tension between those two poles that makes the piece interesting.

 

[travolta]

yes, i agree with you, metal

btw. i meant no disrespect to these other points of views. hope i didn't come off as too much of an a$$

 

[nqth]

Thanks for posting the article:-)

It might be an intended attack on Prada and global conglomerates... but what it really shows is that Prada is soooo desirable and soooo sophisticated. So I think it Prada - the attacker 1:0 :-)

I'd like to quote an art critic Dorota Jarecka (she wrote about Erwin Olaf's "Viritatis Splendor", my translation:-)

"Baroque is always the art of authorities, rich patronages, if (an artist) irritates them, he even flatter them more".

 

[metal-on-metal]

yes, i agree with you, metal

btw. i meant no disrespect to these other points of views. hope i didn't come off as too much of an a$$

No, not at all. Don't worry!

 

[brian]

...i'll be there to see it

 

[jun3machina]

well..it'd be interesting who the first person would be to break in and take all the merchandise and then sell it all on ebay. then you could say it came out of the blahblah art instalation fromtexas and people may even pay more!

 

[brian]

...here's to hoping that the windows are shatterproof glass

 

[Deleted 2]

it seems to be an attack, but i think a lot of artists aren't actually successful in undermining these looming giants. i think it's really blatant and therefore not very thought provoking. i think miuccia is actually smart to realize she could gain from this because if you think of it... will the average person who drives by this, or stops in to examine it further actually have a moment of ephinany? probably not. they'll just remember that really cool prada building in the middle of nowhere ..like mcdonalds, or apple computers. it's a giant brand in the desert..
they'll get the impression prada was part of the collective consciousness.

Guess what...!

 

[jun3machina]

hopefully they thought of that brian...supply and demand in the middle of the desert brings out the worst in people...too bad they dont set up a camera to observe peoples interactions with it...that would be REALLY INTERESTING ART!